White House lawyer Emmet Flood is objecting to what he calls the "political" report by special counsel Robert Mueller. In a letter to Attorney General William Barr, Flood says President Donald Trump will protect executive privilege in the face of congressional inquiries.
Flood says Mueller's comments that the president could not be exonerated on obstruction of justice "do not belong in our criminal justice vocabulary," and says Mueller and his staff "failed in their duty to act as prosecutors and only as prosecutors."
The White House sent the letter to Barr last month, a day after Mueller's report was released publicly. Its existence was first reported by CNN.
Flood adds that though Trump allowed his staff to be interviewed by Mueller's team, he did not waive executive privilege and reserves the ability to instruct his aides to decline to testify in congressional investigations.
Earlier, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said it's "pathetic" that Democrats tried to have staff attorneys question Barr. Barr boycotted a House Judiciary hearing Thursday on Mueller's report.
Sanders told reporters at the White House after an appearance on Fox News that the decision marks "a pretty pathetic moment" for the committee's chairman, Jerry Nadler.
She says that if Nadler is "not capable of asking the attorney general questions, then maybe he should step down or resign."
Barr had objected to the format of the hearing after Democrats decided to let staff attorneys conduct a round of questioning after lawmakers were done.
Lawmakers instead faced an empty chair Thursday morning, a day after Barr testified to a GOP-led Senate panel. (AP)Â
